Social Norms Matter: University Students’ Misbehaviors in the Metro Carriage

Abstract

Metro travelers’ travel experience is highly influenced by fellow passengers’ misbehaviors such as eating or littering in the carriage and sound blaster, which are common in the metro carriage. Although operators have implemented various regulations to reduce misbehavior, little theoretical research has investigated such behavior motivators to provide targeted guidelines for specific passenger segments. To this end, this study explores how demographic and perceived social norms of university students affect their misbehaviors, i.e., eating in the carriage, public display of affection, sound blaster, cross-legged sitting, leaning against the pole, and littering, in the metro carriage of Shanghai, China. With the structural equation model, it is revealed that both injunctive and descriptive norms impose significant impacts on passengers’ inappropriate behaviors, with the effect of the former generally to a greater degree. Gender heterogeneity in passenger misbehavior is also observed, where males significantly perform better in eating in the carriage and cross-legged sitting. These findings may decode the underlying motivation of passenger misbehaviors and provide guidelines for effective intervention with targeted policy design and implementation.

The Impacts of Incentives on Seat Yielding Behavior on the Bus

“…The insignificant gender differences for the seat yielding behavior on public transportation are consistent with the previous studies explaining the variations of significant gender differences for anti-social behaviors ( 37 , 49 ) and seat yielding behavior on public transportation ( 38 ). Educational interventions should target postgraduates or highly qualified people to encourage yielding seat behaviors as they were reluctant to yield seats, possibly because of their busy life routine.…”

“…There are no significant differences in gender and living cost variations in keeping/giving seats to vulnerable individuals when holding all other variables constant, as illustrated in Table 4. Previously, Zhang et al found variations in the significant effects of gender differences for various anti-social behaviors, indicating that the significant differences in gender for conducting a behavior are subject to the type of the behavior itself ( 37 ). Therefore, it is reasonable to find no significant gender differences with regard to the decision to yield seats to vulnerable individuals.…”